Words a cell can’t hold

A poem by this year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo

Liu Xiaobo (photo), a poet and literary critic, is the recipient of the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize. China has forbidden him to travel to the award ceremony, that will be held in Oslo today. This poem was translated by Jeffrey Yang from Chinese.

From ‘Experiencing Death’

I had imagined being there beneath sunlightwith the procession of martyrsusing just the one thin boneto uphold a true convictionAnd yet, the heavenly voidwill not plate the sacrificed in goldA pack of wolves well-fed full of corpsescelebrate in the warm noon airaflood with joyFaraway placeI’ve exiled my life tothis place without sunto flee the era of Christ’s birthI cannot face the blinding vision on the crossFrom a wisp of smoke to a little heap of ashI’ve drained the drink of the martyrs, sense spring’sabout to break into the brocade-brilliance of myriad flowersDeep in the night, empty roadI’m biking home I stop at a cigarette standA car follows me, crashes over my bicyclesome enormous brutes seize meI’m handcuffed eyes covered mouth gaggedthrown into a prison van heading nowhereblink, a trembling instant passesto a flash of awareness: I’m still aliveOn Central Television Newsmy name’s changed to “arrested black hand”though those nameless white bones of the deadstill stand in the forgettingI lift up high up the self-invented lie‘ell everyone how I’ve experienced deathso that “black hand” becomes a hero’s medal of honorEven if I knowdeath's a mysterious unknownbeing alive, there's no way to experience deathand once deadcannot experience death againyet I'm stillhovering within deatha hovering in drowningCountless nights behind iron-barred windowsand the graves beneath starlight have exposedmy nightmaresBesides a lieI own nothing